Xmas Wrap-Up And Thoughts On Fake Wine

So Xmas went pretty well, here are some highlights:

• Manage to arrive in time to rescue $80 in turkey breasts from slooooow dry death in the oven (meat thermometer was spiking at 200 degrees, MIL thought they might not be done yet.)
• Earlier in the week, spouse made suggestion to his mom that we open all gifts FIRST, then eat dinner. Everyone was delighted with this new arrangement and we were able to be home in our sweatpants by 4pm.
• MIL made about 8000 assorted cookies and she is really good at that.
• My fresh baked rolls were fricking TEXTBOOK. MIL did not believe I made them myself. Technically, they are from made from frozen doughballs but you can still potentially fuck them up- I didn’t:)
• Everyone arrived basically on time.
• Everyone liked their gifts

So it was a good day. Now, I mentioned before that I am usually the cocktail instigator at these gatherings so of course it was no surprise that my BIL found me immediately and said, “So what are we mixing up today?” I had to tell him that I’m not mixing today, or at all anymore, but there were several bottles of fabulous flavored cider. And he was all, Oh. Okay.

It was a pretty dry gathering (unlike the turkey breasts I saved– YOU’RE ALL WELCOME), really. A few people had little tiny baby sippy glasses of red wine wine with dinner (I don’t even think they finished them– WHAT THE HELL???)

So yesterday was our couple’s date with some old friends we have not seen in a long time (mostly due to my complete refusal to socialize). They had been informed of our on-wagon status and had no issue with it, in fact joined us in prohibition for the evening. In the course of it, we decided to try the NA wine- Fre Red Blend, it is. I must say– not bad! Really not bad. One of my guests said that if I hadn’t told her it was NA she wouldn’t have known right away. It does have a bit of a winey bite, and was actually satisfying to drink. So give it a try if you’ve been thinking about it, why the fuck not?? Oh but stay away from the Fre chardonnay, it’s nasty and pointless. Unless you like that sort of thing.

ALSO in case you were wondering, you can use NA beer or wine to make fondue. I’ll be posting my fondue (and fon-don’ts) on Hammer Down if you are interested in liquid cheese.